


Chance Encounters

by grim_lupine



Series: Pickpocket 'Verse [4]
Category: Ocean's Eleven (2001), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-14
Updated: 2009-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grim_lupine/pseuds/grim_lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny zips up his jacket, slips the room key into his pocket, and says, “Ten minutes.” He leaves the room, and what comes back twenty minutes later isn’t Danny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chance Encounters

-

\--

It’s mid-November and they’re working a job in Michigan; the air is crisp with an underlying threat of biting chill, and Rusty shoves his hands into his pockets in an effort to keep them warm. Danny shakes his head.

“You should have brought—” he starts.

“I know,” Rusty finishes. He _thought_ about bringing gloves, but left them behind when he doubled back for the bag of M &M’s sitting by his bed. Danny, intently studying the building looming in front of them, peels off his gloves and hands them to Rusty without looking at him.

The leather is warm from the touch of Danny’s skin, and none of this is important to what comes next except for this: there was a time when Rusty had to go on jobs and if he forgot his gloves, there was no one there to give him the ones from their own hands.

*

It’s a nice hotel they’re staying in. Rusty sprawls out on one of the beds and props his head up on one hand, crinkles the building plans with salt-dusted fingers. Danny zips up his jacket, slips the room key into his pocket, and says, “Ten minutes.”

He leaves the room, and what comes back twenty minutes later isn’t Danny.

Oh, it looks like him, to be sure, sounds like him, voice smooth as syrup. But it isn’t him. Rusty knows that like he knows his own name, like he knows the sure-fingered slide of his hand into someone else’s jacket. Like he knows that Rusty minus Danny is something less, something sadder.

Not-Danny smiles at him, says, “Hey, Rusty. Took a little longer than I expected.”

Rusty just stares at him. For every word that Danny speaks there are a thousand unspoken things written in his body: the soft crinkle at the corners of his eyes means _I know it’s only been minutes, but I missed you_ (they’re so codependent that Rusty constantly wonders at the fact that his heart did not simply stop beating the hour he realized Danny was out of his reach); a slight head-tip means _success_ , fingers tapping on one thigh signify _we’ll need to try again later_. Deep down, beneath it all, there is a current running in Danny’s eyes and the long lines of his body that says indelibly _I know you_ , and he does, like Rusty knows nothing better than the sly curve of Danny’s smile.

This imposter wearing his skin, this Not-Danny that has the gall to lie to Rusty with Danny’s face—it has none of that.

“What is it, Rus?” it asks, looking _concerned_ , and Rusty cannot force the words _what the fuck is going on?_ past his numb lips, and that is when the door explodes open into the room.

Two men blaze their way inside, looking incongruous in black suits with long shotguns, but Rusty barely notices them because _DannyDannyDanny_ comes into the room behind them, looking bruised, worried and anxious, not that anyone but Rusty would ever know it, because _this_ is Danny, and Rusty is the only one that knows him throughout.

Not-Danny only has time to snarl viciously and leap forward, before the two men aim their guns and shoot it in the chest. Rusty looks from its crumpled form, to Danny, and says blankly, “I knew it wasn’t you.”

Danny’s hand is warm when he curls it around Rusty’s arm. He says, “Of course you knew,” no doubt in his voice.

Rusty swallows, before years of thinking on his feet and hiding his feelings kick in, and he turns to the two men with a calm look and an arched brow of _explain, please._

The shorter one says bluntly, “So I guess we don’t need to convince you that there are weird things around you that you have no idea of.”

Rusty quirks his lips. “No, this is pretty convincing.” Behind him, where the other two can’t see, he touches his fingers briefly to Danny’s side, a tell if anyone else were watching that he isn’t half as calm as he seems. Danny is warm and solidly _there_ , and he shifts his weight till he’s pressing more firmly against Rusty’s hand.

There’s a sharp intake of breath from behind the short, absurdly pretty man, and for the first time Rusty looks properly at the other person in the room. He sees a kid—tall and broad, but still undeniably a kid—with long hair flopping into his eyes, and he remembers a lonely bar outside Palo Alto, and he remembers a boy with the same pain in his eyes that Rusty lived and breathed for the endless time he was without Danny.

“Oh…” the kid says softly, eyes flicking from Rusty to Danny, and back. He looks like he can see right through Rusty’s placid exterior, to the fear raised by the bruises on Danny and the crumpled form on the ground wearing Danny’s face, and the bone-deep knowledge that there is nothing he can’t handle when Danny is standing right there next to him. The kid says understandingly, “So that’s what you were missing.”

His—friend? Brother? Rusty isn’t sure, but he recognizes a lifelong connection when he sees it—frowns and says questioningly, “Sammy?”

Sam smiles at Rusty, grabs the body on the ground and turns to leave, says to the other man, “Come on, Dean. Let’s go.”

Rusty looks at Dean, sees the strong lines of his jaw, the casual energy rolling under his skin. He sees the quick, deft hands, looks down at his own, and he sees the absence of loneliness in Sam’s eyes and understands.

He calls out, “Take care, kid,” and he means _I’m glad you found what you were missing, too_.

From the nod Sam gives him, and the smile he aims at Danny, Rusty knows he heard it all.

\--

-


End file.
